Because HSPs are highly responsive to their environments, they may be more vulnerable to anxiety, depression, shame, burnout, or social withdrawal when they have lived through chronic stress, criticism, trauma, invalidation, or environments where sensitivity was treated as weakness. Aron’s work is clear that high sensitivity itself is not a diagnosis, but a normal trait that can interact with life experiences in important ways. A sensitive nervous system may absorb more from

Community always costs us something. I can only speak from my perspective when I say that, to date, it cost me my identity, my health, my sense of value and purpose, and my joy. But did it have to cost me everything to remain connected? I was not aware—nor was it taught—that I had a right to choose the cost.

Listen, life is hard as a late discovered Autistic adult and Autistic Burnout can sneak up on us if we are not already maintaining consistent routines and working through our late-discovery traumas.

Neurodivergent describes an individual whose brain and nervous system develop or operate in ways that differ from what a given culture considers “typical.” Neurotypical describes someone whose development and processing fit more closely with those social expectations.